Massive Sound Problems

[gamefather]

I tried the turning off hardware accelaration and the skipping went from major to minor.

 

[Rameau's Nephew]

Update: the larger wonder movies (so far, pyramids) are also giving me trouble. When I posted before, I had only seen a couple. I'll try turning off hardware acceleration tonight.

Has anyone tried anything with the recommended driver that's mentioned in the readme file?

 

[Snooters]

i have the same prob as you guys. i was kinda annoyed when i got the rock n roll upgrade, i wanted to hear the music

 

[TheBarnacle]

i have the same prob as you guys. i was kinda annoyed when i got the rock n roll upgrade, i wanted to hear the music

hey, at least you're able to play long enough to GET to that wonder.

my game is virtually unplayable. it's 'ok' for 10 minutes, then slowly bogs down from there. if i have to exit and reload every 30 minutes just to play, that's not really that much fun. (now, a 6 pack and doom III on xbox, THAT is fun)

 

[LoneWolf5050]

Altering the hardware acceleration level for the sound card seemed to help in my case too, but the problem didn't totally go away. I will try something other than the "no acceleration" setting and see if there's a happy medium that works.

--Julian

 

[Greenlocke]

Once again guys...
I had the exact same problem as all of you. (in game wonder movies stuttered).
I was playing the tutorial.
I quit, and fired off some messages to take2 and civfanatics.
Then I got the dx info and posted it here. While getting the info I tested my sound card at all levels.
Then I went back because I was willing to play without the movies.
Now it works. I'm not sure why. I've played two different maps. Niether one was the tutorial.

Here's my analysis:

1. It could be an ingame setting that was on for the tutorial but off for my games.
2. Testing my sound at all levels might have cleared it up.
3. I just got lucky.

Good luck all.

 

[Kodek77]

To Nforce users : Updating the audio driver to 4.62 solved every sound problem for me,including the wonder movies you can download the driver from here
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_audio_4.62_win2kxp.html

 

[LoneWolf5050]

FYI: I have found that the hardware accelleration level does not seem to significantly affect the problem for me, no matter what setting you use.

--Julian

 

[fjorner]

I have Realtek AC'97 onboard sound with my compaq. I have a feeling that the choppy sound is due more to my sheety processor (2.4ghz Celeron). I have lots of problems just playing music with Windows Media Player and opening another application. But it does sound like I am getting the same hear music for a second, no music for a second problem that you guys are.

 

[Divide Overflow]

I've got the exact same problem. Wonder movies stutter badly. All the rest of the in-game sounds seem to work just fine. No problems with video. I'm using an Audigy 2 ZS card with the latest drivers. Changing hardware acceleration to disabled didn't fix it for me. Sounds like a game bug that needs to be squashed.

 

[Graun]

I have the same problem with 'Wonder Movies'!

Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 1 (2600.xpsp2.040919-1003)
Language: Chinese (Regional Setting: Chinese)
BIOS: BIOS Date: 05/07/04 23:07:08 Ver: 08.00.09
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2600+, ~1.9GHz
Memory: 510MB RAM
Page File: 292MB used, 1724MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.0001.0904 32bit Unicode

-------------
Sound Devices
-------------
Description: SoundMAX Digital Audio
Default Sound Playback: Yes
Default Voice Playback: Yes
Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_3059&SUBSYS_810D1043&REV_60
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Type: WDM
Driver Name: smwdm.sys
Driver Version: 5.12.0001.3663 (English)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
Date and Size: 7/15/2003 16:00:00, 578368 bytes
Other Files:
Driver Provider: Analog Devices
HW Accel Level: Full
Cap Flags: 0xF5F
Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 48000
Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 33, 32
Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 33, 32
HW Memory: 0
Voice Management: Yes
EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: Yes, Yes
I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: Yes, Yes
Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): Yes
Registry: OK
Sound Test Result: Not run

 

[Thorek]

Having the exact same problem with SB Live!, so if updating drivers doesnt work, what other suggestions do we have?

 

[tadios]

I've got the same problem, folks, on a Realtek AC'97 (seems like Realtek AC'97 and SBLive's are the most affected)

It seems like the problem is some incompatibility of Bink RAD Game Tools used by civ4... specifically the binkw32.dll file. If anyone has a newer version of this file (maybe getting it from another game), please post here so that we can test that!

BTW, latest version is 1.8g:

http://radgametools.com/bnkhist.htm

 

[fjorner]

I've got the same problem, folks, on a Realtek AC'97 (seems like Realtek AC'97 and SBLive's are the most affected)

It seems like the problem is some incompatibility of Bink RAD Game Tools used by civ4... specifically the binkw32.dll file. If anyone has a newer version of this file (maybe getting it from another game), please post here so that we can test that!

BTW, latest version is 1.8g:

http://radgametools.com/bnkhist.htm

Does this work for anyone? You said its an incompatibility but does this actually solve anything? How do you know its a problem with this file?

 

[tadios]

Does this work for anyone? You said its an incompatibility but does this actually solve anything? How do you know its a problem with this file?

I don't know yet, I haven't tried it because I don't have the latest version of the file. It's just a suggestion, because I noticed that Civ4 uses the Bink engine for playing video, and the skipping sound problem only happens when playing the videos. BTW, if you download Bink RAD Tools, and if you unpack the game files (as in the Radeon fix), you can play the .bik movie files in the Bink Player

 

[Zevus]

I've got an SB Audigy 2 and have the same problem with the stuttering sound in the wonder movies. The religion discoveries etc that also show movies, the sound is fine.

 

[LoneWolf5050]

On June 14 of 2001, the Bink 1.1a release includes this in the notes:

"Rewritten DirectSound layer - much more tolerant of CPU starvation. Also worked around buggy SBLive drivers that would cause periodic skipping under Windows 2000."

Also, on Oct 4 2002, version 1.5m includes this note:

"Worked around buggy Windows XP sound drivers that report bogus playback positions (which was causing occasional skips)."

Sounds like they need to look at those issues again; I can't imagine the version of Bink Civ4 is using is from pre 2002 or 2001.

--Julian

 

[fjorner]

I don't know yet, I haven't tried it because I don't have the latest version of the file. It's just a suggestion, because I noticed that Civ4 uses the Bink engine for playing video, and the skipping sound problem only happens when playing the videos. BTW, if you download Bink RAD Tools, and if you unpack the game files (as in the Radeon fix), you can play the .bik movie files in the Bink Player

Ok, now I see where you're going with this. That makes a ton of sense. You may very well be on to something tadios.

Does CivIV install Bink somewhere where it can be overwritten with the latest version of the bink player from the bink website? Do you get the same problems playing the movies in the bink player that you do in the game?

 

[gunnergoz]

I have the choppy movie sound problem with an SB Audigy 2 board, P4/2.5 Ghz, 1GB RAM/ nVidea 5700/256MB Win XP Pro system; all new updated drivers, game reinstalled after drivers updated, etc. Game plays well except for the movie sounds. Still no word on a fix, though it seems to be a very commonplace problem.

 

[LoneWolf5050]

Suggestion: Can a moderator rename this thread to include "sound skipping" in the name? That would probably help people collect info in the right place.

--Julian